The military says an American soldier was killed and four others wounded when gunmen opened fire on them today near Tikrit. At least seven U.S. soldiers have been killed in attacks in Iraq over the past two weeks.
Central Command says the attackers used small arms and rocket-propelled grenade.
Tikrit is about 120 miles north of Baghdad and remains a tense area for American forces.
In a separate incident, unidentified assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms at a U.S. patrol near an air base west of Baghdad on Friday, military sources said.
Soldiers returned fire, but there were no reports of casualties on either side.
The attackers fired on an M1A1 Abrams tank and a military police Humvee. The tank wasn’t damaged, but the Humvee had numerous bullet holes in it, according to field reports.
The firefight in the town of Khaldiya, 45 miles west of Baghdad, is the latest in a series of hit-and-run attacks by gunmen on U.S. forces in central Iraq. Several dozen soldiers have been killed or injured.
On Thursday, gunmen shot dead an American soldier and wounded five in the nearby city of Fallujah (search), where there has been strong resistance to the U.S. occupation.
Meanwhile, U.S. military sources said that two soldiers guarding a bank in downtown Baghdad were wounded Thursday when two men with pistols opened fire at them. The sentries returned fire and killed one of the attackers, while the other managed to flee, said a statement released by the U.S. Central Command.
It said that in another incident in the capital, a soldier injured four civilians when he accidentally fired his machine gun as he was picking it up. The victims, who were struck in the legs, were evacuated. The statement said their injuries were not life-threatening.
